Argumentative Methods Of Adele Douglas And J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

Adele Douglas and J. Kenji Lopez-Alt both start their argumentative piece by defining who their argument is targeted to as well as what they will be arguing. Over the course of the two contrasting papers, they both use similar and contrasting methods to try and convince the reader of their opinion. By doing this, a number of flaws as well as good techniques can be seen in both writings. In Adele Douglas’s argumentative letter, she starts by making her definitive stance, that stance being that eating Foie Gras in inhumane, immoral, and completely unethical. By stating her opinion immediately, the audience is able to easily understand who her target is and what her point is. Her point being to convince the audience that by eating Foie Gras,
Providing credibility to this organization in turn provides credibility to herself. She is using what is called juxtaposition; comparing her opinion to those of a professional organization allows her to boost her credibility. When Adele Douglas uses juxtaposition, it coincides with her other strategy of pathos, by providing researched facts to her opinions, Douglas is able to blur the lines between her argumentative opinion and the facts from these high level organizations. An ample example of this is evident in her argument, “But the birds in foie gras production—again, with rare exceptions—are force-fed far more than they would ever consume naturally. That increases the size of their livers to about 10 times their normal size—far beyond the natural 30% to 50% expansion that happens when birds fatten themselves up before long, migratory flights, and far from healthy” (Douglas). In this quote, it is evident that douglas is making an emotional argument that has no reliable resource backed by it. By stating this opinion without any resources her argument is weakened because the audience is left to trust her statement and without sufficient ethos or personality build up, it makes the statement be perceived as
Kenji Lopez-Alt uses juxtaposition to convince the reader that his argument of ‘why we should eat Foie Gras’ is completely ethical. The way he uses juxtaposition uses imagery to compare the overfeeding of ducks to the production of every other meat in America. He quotes that, “The slaughter is not pleasant, but no different than for any animal. If you decide to eat meat, you must come to terms with the fact that an animal has been killed for that privilege” (Lopez-Alt). By using juxtaposition like this throughout his entire paper, convincing the audience that the production of Foie Gras is ethical becomes a lot easier because he is able to compare the daily consumption of all meats and animal products such as beef, chicken, and turkey to the consumption of Foie Gras thus making it seem no less ethical of an option than any other